Envoy Ride

I'm out of town on business. My team consists of relatively young (33-27) year olds and a part of the audit culture is to talk freely about life, both personal and professional. For those who are not aware of "audit culture," ...coming out of college, you work most intimately (and by intimate I mean 4-7 people sitting in one conference room) with people aged 30 and under and spend more time at work than you do with friends/family (There are times when I worked anywhere between 60 to 70 hours/week for 3 months consistently). So it's a culture in which you develop personal relationships with those that you work with because you spend so much time with them.

In the Envoy was an Asain woman, Cuacasion Male, Black-American (by way of Jamaica) and Me - Black-American, the mutt who can trace both paternal and maternal ancestors back to slavery. We had an interesting dialogue about experiences with race growing up.

The asian woman was raised by a Caucasian family in an all Caucasian town. As a disclaimer, she tends to say off the wall things that leave your jaw open, thinking "OMG, did she just say that?" She flat out said, "White people ask me dumb ass questions. The stupidest thing a white person has ever asked me is can you see?"

The white guy said, "well isn't that more of a reflection of the people that you were around? Ignorance doesn't discriminate and if you're only around white people, it doesn't surprise me that a stupid question like that would come up. But you could get the same ignorant question if you were the only Asian around all blacks, all Indians, all Hispanics." Good point, ignorance doesn't discriminate.

Then I told her that as a black person that grew up around all whites, I took on some of their prejudices toward black people. At the most extreme time, I had a lot of self-hate as a result of being infused with their prejudices. I didn't think I was an attractive person as a child because 1) I didn't have the same physical attributes (swingy hair, skinny body, blue/green/grey eyes, button and/or long instead of wide nose etc) and 2) I was flat out told that the only pretty black woman was Whitney Houston, that I was ugly or that I was a nigger. I think that surprised the white guy because now, I come off as confident and am not half bad looking.

However, those feelings of insecurity amongst all whites when it comes to beauty have definitely carried over to adulthood. I indicated that especially in the south, if I get all dolled up and go out to bars/clubs, I have ALWAYS received more attention from black men than white men (or hell, even when I go to the grocery store looking like yesterday's business). Therefore, I don't prefer to go to mostly white bars/clubs and would rather go to a mostly black bar/club (so hopefully she will stop asking me to go with her to be her wing-gal flirt).

That lead into the next conversation... the basic perception that black women are generally not romanticized...we might be sexualized, but not romanticized. This stems from the fact that environment (media) does not subliminally send messages to the masses that black women are beautiful. We're often times shown in roles such as the 40+ strong-personalitied modernized Aunt Jamaima.

One interesting response that the white guy had regarding why black women are not equally represented in television, magazines and other forms of popular media is that black people represent approximately 10% of the population. So statistically speaking, we should not expect to see black people inundated in popular, mainstream media. However, let's be real, black's representation in popular mainstream media is less than 10% (or at least it feels that way...when I turn on NBC/ABC/CBS at night, I don't feel like I see at least 10%). And when you see the black women as desirable, it's the same 3-4 black women that have been around for about 10 years...Beyonce, Halle, Tyra, and...???

I always think candid conversations on race are interesting. People tend to not be flat out racists and/or biggots, they just have experiences that have shaped their perception and/or preferences. I learned a bit and perhaps they learned a bit about me as well.